


Quitting

by Slothquisitor



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 13:36:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5541950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slothquisitor/pseuds/Slothquisitor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen quits lyrium and travels to Haven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quitting

The sun was streaming through the window, but the usually hopeful sight made Cullen’s head ache. He was covered in a sheen of sweat and his whole body ached down to his bones. Every time he moved it was as if his bones had become brittle and he could hear them crackle with his movements. The sound made his head spin. He thought of the electric blue liquid that would cure all of this with an intense longing. His whole body cried out for it.   
I am no longer a templar, he steeled himself against the temptation. The thought had become a mantra as his body went through the withdrawal symptoms. He tried to remind himself why he was in a shabby inn in West Hill. Alone.   
The idea of quitting lyrium had been with him for weeks now. After the everything that happened in Kirkwall - he wouldn’t allow himself to be chained to that life anymore. He had been so easily manipulated. Perhaps if it weren’t for the lyrium he would have seen Meredith for what she was sooner. Maybe he could have stopped her before things dissolved into chaos. The guilt threatened to envelope him and he pushed it away. There was nothing else to be done, he could only move forward.   
He made the decision after speaking with Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast. He had only met her once before, but when she offered him a position within the Inquisition he jumped at it. He told her he needed a week to set his affairs in Kirkwall in order. He’d needed no such time. He’d turned in his armor, gathered the few possessions he had and took the next ship to Fereldan.   
What he had needed time for was this. Lying sick in his bed while his body protested to the singing leaving his veins. The sound of lyrium was a deathless song that couldn’t be over-dreamed or imagined, with every shake of his hands he longed for it.   
Cullen had learned everything he could about stopping the lyrium use. There wasn’t much to know. It killed some who tried to stop, drove others mad. But under Meredith, Cullen had witnessed what happens when lyrium is denied to Templars.   
One Templar who opposed Meredith was kept away from it for three days. Cullen remembered seeing the man as he suffered through the withdrawal pains, punishment for his insubordination. Meredith was especially cruel, drawing out the punishment for several days. By the third day they finally gave him a philter, but Cullen had seen a change in him. The worst of it had passed, the other Templars had felt that he had resigned himself to death, but Cullen felt like worst of the withdrawal pains had passed. It had to be that. If it wasn’t he would never make it to Haven.   
The first few days would be the hardest, he had told himself that. His body protesting in every way it could becoming physically ill with each passing hour. It was crying out for lyrium, and showing its need by rejecting everything else. Food, water, everything. Despite the shaking, the sick, all of it Cullen held onto his faith that he was doing the right thing.   
He would no longer be controlled by the chains of the chantry. He would not allow someone to manipulate him again as Meredith had done. He would endure this.   
He said a prayer, Though all before me is shadow,  
Yet shall The Maker be my guide.  
I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the beyond.  
For there is no darkness in The Maker’s light,   
and nothing that he has wrought shall be lost.   
Cold. He was so cold. Waking up shaking, but not just from the cold. Shaking all the time. Weak, he thought, I am weak now. Oh how he felt weak. Every movement required so much effort. Meanwhile his head throbbed painfully. Pain that came and went like waves hitting the sea shore. Pounding harder, softer, harder still. Cullen used to think the sound of the sea was calming, there was no such peace to be found in the waves of pain that left him nauseated.   
Curled on the floor he felt his stomach flip, could feel the sick moving through his body like a convulsion. It burned his throat as it came up, no food this time, just the bitter taste of bile. His body heaving, even though there was nothing left. He laid back down and drifted back into fitful sleep.   
He awoke again later. He wasn’t sure how much later, but he felt worse than before. His body was wracked with pain and he was covered in sweat. His mouth felt dry and his throat burned out of wanting. He drank some water, but it didn’t help. His body needed it. He was dying without it.   
Cullen gritted his teeth, I choose this. I must endure.  
Cullen held fast to a prayer. Kept it close. Muttered over and over again in the darkness. Could he endure this? Cullen had accepted the consequences of his decision to go off of lyrium. He knew it could kill him. He believed it would not come to that, but he felt it was better than a life chained to it and the Chantry.   
He had seen what it did to Templars who used it for too long. There was a reason you did not see older Templars. He watched men, barely over forty unable to remember things day to day. It started slow, a word or two here, a memory there until slowly their lives disappeared into the haze of a lyrium corrupted mind.   
There was no life to be had if he continued using. Especially now that there was a chance for a more. A real life. Not the life of a Templar. He wanted to remember who he was in ten years time, his family, he wanted his life to be his.   
So he would endure. It was only the second day.   
That night is when the nightmares began. Since the events of The Circle Tower, nightmares had followed him, but this was different. These nightmares haunted him even when he was waking. Nightmares borne from memory. Memories he had fought to keep from the front of his mind, dulled by the lyrium, now had sharp edges that dug into his skin with barbs that ripped him apart. Sleep that used to come so easily was now marred by horrifying scenes from The Circle Tower.   
He awoke feverish fingers groping in the darkness for armor that wasn’t there. His fingers found only the cool metal of his sword, one he did not have in The Circle Tower. He breathed a sigh of relief, tears burning in the corners of his eyes and then he found himself retching. The sudden jolt back to reality left him conflicted. He had only wished for death one other time in his life, he wasn’t sure which torture he preferred.  
The next time he awoke he felt better. The weight that had settled on his chest seemed to be gone. He could breathe. The headache remained, his stomach still felt queasy, but he could breathe for the first time in years.   
He closed his eyes, Thank The Maker.  
Over the next few hours, Cullen was able to keep food down and felt his strength returning. Tomorrow he would continue to Haven. Towards a new life. He felt the small pinprick of something he hadn’t felt in years. Hope.   
The following morning as he packed his things he noticed a change in the room. As the sun filtered through the window, this place that had been his prison didn’t seem so confining. He would leave it and the lyrium behind.   
While on the road he noticed small things. The green of the trees, the color of the sky all looked more vibrant. As if he had been living with only the memories of color and was suddenly seeing re-experiencing it.  
He remembered his first philter; the power that followed the initial draught. At the time it had made him feel strong and proud. He was more alert. Focused. At the thought he felt his stomach drop, lyrium had dulled everything in his life until only duty remained. He vowed he would never go back to that life.  
He hummed as he rode on. Tunes he didn’t even know he remembered. Glimpses of memories from time long past felt their way to the forefront of his mind. Moments he didn’t even know he still had. The faces of his siblings laughing and running in front of the house….his mother singing as she shelled peas in the kitchen….  
Things he had never thought to miss because he hadn’t remembered their existence. What else had he forgotten? What pieces of his life had he lost forever?  
No more, he promised himself. No more forgetting, no matter how painful the memories were. It was not worth this. It would never be worth losing himself.   
The village of Haven came into view and with that the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Cullen knew good could be done here. The Inquisition was still an idea - the Divine’s solution if the conclave should fail. He knew that it was possible it might never come to fruition. He didn’t care. He wanted his life to have purpose again. That was why he had joined the Templars in the first place. He wondered now if the Templars of his home village had been so reluctant to train him because they knew the sacrifice that choice entailed.   
How differently his life could have been. He would have taken over the farm after his parents death. Looked after his siblings. Maybe he would have married, had children by now. But instead he had sought purpose. That purpose had isolated him and broken him. It was time to find a new one. He hoped it awaited him in Haven.   
****  
The Seeker was easy to find in Haven, she was beating the practice dummies to nothing but stuffing.   
“Seeker,” he said, getting her attention.   
She looked up, “Welcome to Haven, Commander.”  
The title made him pause. He had to tell Cassandra, “I need you to know something. Once I tell you I completely understand if you would rather not have me as commander. I will happily serve the Inquisition in whatever capacity I might be useful.”  
The Seeker glared at him in response.   
“I’ve stopped taking lyrium,” he said, words tumbling out of his mouth.   
Cassandra’s face softened, eyebrows raised in surprise, “When?”  
“It’s been almost a week,” Cullen replied.   
“That is…..impressive. It will require a great deal of discipline to continue without it. It is something you will most likely struggle with your whole life,” Cassandra said.   
Cullen nodded. Unbelieving. The worst of it was behind him, it had to be. Besides he felt so good now. So much more whole.   
“This does not change your offer?” he asked.   
“No. If anything it cements it. You were the right choice for this, perhaps you can show others the way,” Cassandra said, “I would not tell anyone else for now.”  
Cullen nodded, “You will keep an eye on me. If I am unfit for duty you will ensure I am relieved?”  
Cassandra gave him a searching look but finally sighed, “Yes, I will. You have my word.”


End file.
